My 3 year old has seen all the pictures from her birth. She's seen her little head of black hair crowning, her placenta splayed like the beautiful tree of life that it was.
This really disturbs some people. I mean, why would I show such things to a little girl?
One, it's only a "bad" thing if you make it so. I think it's beautiful and amazing.
Second, I didn't intentionally show her the pictures the first time, but that's long past and I want her to hear and see and know about these things from me instead of someone else. It's her and it's me and it's beautiful and natural and magical.
Birth is not a secret. It's not something that's shameful or shouldn't be shared or discussed. It's beautiful and amazing and should be celebrated.
Much like sex.
I don't plan on talking to H or B about sex tomorrow, but I will if they ask. Luckily H hasn't questioned how she or her brother ended up in my tummy, she just knows that's where they baked for awhile before coming out.
It's outrageous how young kids are these days who know too much about sex. I know of a little girl in kindergarten who was asked to give a blow job at recess. Another in the 4th grade who went home and asked what a pregnancy test was because her best friend had to take one. And that's here. Real people with real little girls that I know and see and talk to.
My mom was never secretive when it came to sex with us. She always answered our questions and was open about things.
Yet even I learned about sex at an incredibly young age.
I spent the night with a friend in the 2nd grade. She had several older brothers and in a trunk in their basement they had a stash of porn.
I remember it vividly. Her opening the trunk. Her telling me I will never believe the magazines her brothers read. Her not even knowing the words to explain what we were seeing in those pictures.
As an adult I know it was girl on girl pornography. It still makes my stomach churn a little just thinking about it to be honest.
At 11 a friend introduced me to the word "masturbation" and I had all kinds of questions for my mom about that. I just couldn't wrap my head around that. At all. I still played with dolls for goodness sakes.
At 14 I was introduced to video porn one New Year's Eve. It made me laugh; I totally did not get it.
At ages much too young I learned about how some men want these sexual things so much, they'll take it without asking.
And because of all of my much too young experiences and introductions into the world of sex, I want to shelter my children from it all for as long as humanly possible.
That way they are able to see sex for what it really is, not the skewed and immature versions some people think it is.
Like birth, I want them to know its beautiful. It's natural. Between two consenting adults who are in love it can be one of the most magical experiences in the world.
But how do you keep that sacred in such a sexed up world?
Even knowing what I knew, experiencing what I had, I felt completely naive in regards to sex when I got married. And I'd been shown and told and gone through a lot.
So in a world where kindergartners give blow jobs and 4th graders take pregnancy tests how in the world do you keep your children as children? Safe and protected until they're ready? And at the same time make sure you beat everyone to the punch before they can rock your baby's world and tell them about the things mommy has yet to tell?
I don't want them to be so young. But I also don't want someone else to be the one to enlighten them.
So where do you draw that line?
I don't know. Haven't even a remote clue at this point.
J says that's where knowing your child comes into play. Knowing their friends and their friends home lives. But to an extent, you can only know so much, no matter how friendly and informed you are where your children's immediate playmates are concerned.
A random kid at the park or at the YMCA play n' learn could be the one to drop the ball, not necessarily H or B's close friends. You just never know.
I'd like to think I have several more years to figure it out. But it doesn't look to be that way with the rate sex is being introduced to our children these days.
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